Dear Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi ,
I am writing to urge you to stop the executions of four juvenile offenders at risk of imminent execution in Iran.
In the last decade, the execution of juvenile offenders has all but stopped throughout the world. Iran continues to execute juvenile offenders on a regular basis and since 2004 is the only country to have executed a juvenile offender every year.
I urge you to take urgent steps to ensure that Behnoud Shojaee, Mohammad Feda’i, Saeed Jazee and Salah Taseb are not executed. Their executions would be a gross violation of international law, which defines a juvenile offender as a person who is under the age if 18 at the time of the offence, regardless of their age at the time of the trial and sentencing.
International law, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to which Iran is a state party, prohibits the execution of juvenile offenders.
I urge your Government, as a state party to the ICCPR and the CRC, to bring your domestic legislation in line with your commitments under international law and abolish the death penalty as a sentence imposed on persons for committing crimes before the age of 18. I urge you to commute the death sentences on all juvenile offenders as a step towards total abolition of the death penalty.
Sincerely,
Divas (Nepal)
From: Amnesty International
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human rights
